An even-harmonic mixer using a bipolar differential pair (bipolar harmonic mixer;BHMIX) is theoretically analyzed from the direct conversion point of view; i.e, conversion gain, third-order input intercept point (IIP3), self-mixing induced dc offset level, and second-order input intercept point (IIP2). Also, noise are analyzed based on nonlinear large-signal model, and numerical results are given. Noises are treated as cyclostationary noises, thus all the folding effects are taken into account. Factors determining IIP3, IIP2, dc offset, and noise are identified and estimation procedures for these characteristics are obtained. For example, design guidelines for the optimal noise performance are given. Measured results support all the analysis results, and they are very useful in the practical BHMIX design.

This paper describes 10-bit, 80-MSample/s pipelined A/D converters for wireless-communication terminals. To reduce power consumption, we employed the I/Q amplifier sharing technique [1] in which an amplifier is used for both I and Q channels. In addition, common-source, pseudo-differential (PD) amplifiers are used in all the conversion stages for further power reduction. Common-mode disturbances are removed by the proposed common-mode feedforward (CMFF) technique without using fully differential (FD) amplifiers. The converter was implemented in a 90-nm CMOS technology, and it consumes only 24 mW/ch from a 1.2-V power supply. The measured SNR and SNDR are 58.6 dB and 52.2 dB, respectively.

The architecture and control procedure for a direct conversion receiver are investigated for a linear modulation scheme. The proposed design techniques maintain receiver linearity despite various types of signal distortion. The techniques include the fast gain control procedure for receiving a control channel for air interface connection, DC offset canceling in both analog and digital stages, and 2nd-order intermodulation distortion canceling in an analog down-conversion stage. Experimental and computer simulation results on PHS (Personal Handy-phone System) parameters, showed that required linear modulation performance was achieved and thus the applicability of the proposed techniques was demonstrated.

A CMOS programmable gain amplifier (PGA) with a swiched capacitor offset compensation circuit is described. The mean compensation error is 130µV at the input, and the standard deviation of the compensation error is 50µV. This PGA is applicable to a baseband amplifier for digital radio communication terminals.

A 2-GHz down-converter for wide-band wireless communication systems is described. To achieve both wide-band output characteristic and LO signal suppression, an on-chip LC series resonator which is resonated at LO signal frequency and a transimpedance amplifier which is used in the output buffer circuit are used. To achieve a low sensitivity to temperature, two kinds of bias circuits; a VT reference current source and a bandgap reference current source are used. The measured 3-dB bandwidth of 600 MHz is achieved. The conversion gain varies less than 0.2 dB within 200 MHz 10 MHz and 400 MHz 10 MHz band and 0.7 dB for the temperature range from -34 to 85. At room temperature, conversion gain of 15 dB, NF of 9.5 dB and IIP3 of -5 dBm are obtained respectively. The down-converter is fabricated using Si BiCMOS process with ft=20 GHz, and it occupies approximately 1 mm2.

Sampling clock jitter degrades the dynamic range of an analog-to-digital converter (ADC). In this letter, a low-power low-noise clock signal generator for ADCs is described. As a clock signal generator, a ring-VCO-based charge pump PLL is used to reduce power dissipation within a given jitter specification. The clock signal generator is fabricated on a CMOS chip with 200-MSPS 10-bit ADC. The measured results show that the ADC keeps a 60-MHz input bandwidth and 53-dB dynamic range and a next-generation mobile wireless terminal can be realized with the ADCs and the on-chip low-power clock generator.

Recent advanced technology makes digital circuits small and the number of digital functional blocks that can be integrated on a single chip is increasing rapidly. On the other hand, reduction in the size of analog circuits has been insufficient. This means that the analog circuit area is relatively large, and reducing analog circuit area can be effective to make a low cost radio receiver. In this paper, a new wireless receiver architecture that occupies small analog area is proposed, and measured results of the core analog blocks are described. To reduce the analog area, a balanced 3-phase analog system is adopted and the functions of analog baseband filters and VGAs are moved to the digital domain. The test chip consists of a 3-phase downconverter and a 3-phase ADC. There is no analog baseband filter on the chip and the analog filter is assumed to be replaced with a digital filter. The downconverter and ADC occupy 0.28 mm2. The measured results show the possibility that the requirements for IMT-2000 are fulfilled even with a small chip area.

For wireless receivers, low-power 1.2-V 12-bit 100-MSPS pipeline ADCs are fabricated in 90-nm CMOS technology. To achieve low-power dissipation at 1.2 V without the degradation of SNR, the configuration of 2.5 bit/stage is employed with an I/Q amplifier sharing technique. Furthermore, single-stage pseudo-differential amplifiers are used in a Sample-and-Hold (S/H) circuit and a 1st Multiplying Digital-to-Analog Converter (MDAC). The pseudo-differential amplifier with two-gain-stage transimpedance gain-boosting amplifiers realizes high DC gain of more than 90 dB with low power. The measured SNR of the 100-MSPS ADC is 66.7 dB at 1.2-V supply. Under that condition, each ADC dissipates only 55 mW.

From the viewpoint of a low-power pipeline ADC design, a comparison between two conventional power reduction techniques is discussed. The comparison shows that the amplifier sharing technique has an advantage in terms of the power reduction effect. To confirm the advantage, a test chip of 10-bit 80-MSPS ADC using the amplifier sharing technique is fabricated. The test chip dissipates 55 mW at 80 MSPS (Mega Sample Per Second).

This paper describes a 1.2-V, 12-bit, 200-MSample/s current-steering CMOS digital-to-analog (D/A) converter for wireless-communication terminals. To our knowledge, the supply voltage of this converter is the lowest for high-speed applications. To overcome increasing device mismatch in low-voltage operation, we propose an H-shaped, 3-dimensional structure for reducing influence of voltage drops (IR drops) along power supplies. This technique relaxes mismatch requirements and allows use of small devices with small parasitics. By using this technique, a low-voltage, high-speed D/A converter was realized. The converter was implemented in a 90-nm CMOS technology. The modulator achieves the intrinsic accuracy of 12 bits and a spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) above 55 dB over a 100-MHz bandwidth.

A direct conversion receiver IC including an on-chip balun, an I/Q mixer, a variable gain amplifier and a 90 phase-shifter is fabricated in a Bi-CMOS technology with 15 GHz transition frequency (fT). This paper demonstrates that cascaded connection of an on-chip balun and a double balanced mixer as the I/Q mixer is effective to achieve a low DC offset and a low second-order distortion, on the basis of both careful examination of the mixer behavior and measurement. Input-referred DC offset voltage of less than 300 µV and spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) of over 67 dB are obtained by measurement. The IC consumes 52 mA from 2.7 V power supply voltage. The die size is 3 mm 3 mm.

An architecture for a digital-to-RF converter for a software defined radio (SDR) transmitter is proposed. The ideal hardware architecture for an SDR is a digital-signal to RF-signal direct conversion transmitter. However no conventional digital-to-analog converter (DAC) has converted over 1-GHz RF signal with enough resolution, in the present condition. In this paper, a digital-to-RF direct converter architecture using a ΔΣ modulation technique is proposed for the amplitude-phase modulated signal. The experimental results show that the proposed direct converter outputs a sufficiently accurate signal.